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Stoke-on-Trent's latest bottle kiln has been unveiled - and it will be firing oatcakes rather than pottery.

The £10,000 project has been brought to life at The Potbank, which is based at Spode Works in Stoke.

Now the three-metre high feature - which boasts a fully functioning pizza oven - will be used as a backdrop for weddings and other events. It has been built from 645 clay bricks, with the moulds created using innovative 3D printing technology from Ibstock Brick.

Jeff Nash, developer of The Potbank hotel and café, said: "The Spode factory was once filled with bottle kilns, which fell into disuse.

Jeff next to the three-metre high specially made kiln

"The last kiln fell down in the '70s after the buddleia was cleaned before a visit from the Queen. Since then, this is the first brick bottle oven to be built for 50-plus years."

The last china bottle oven at Spode collapsed on February 23, 1972

The new bottle kiln will be known as No. 48 as there are only 47 other kilns left standing in the Potteries, with the rest lost to history.

The oven inside it was made by Stoke-on-Trent-based Pizza Oven Supplies, which uses reclaimed refractory materials from

Samantha Riley and her husband Nick are the directors of Pizza Oven Supplies and were delighted to be asked to create the oven.

Samantha said: "Jeff had an oven from us for his home and he got in touch to tell us his idea for the oven. The kiln uses our Roma 900 oven.

"We think it's great what Jeff is doing down at Spode and it's been amazing for us to be part of it."

The kiln was designed as a quirky setting for wedding and special event photos. And its height was determined by photographers, who specified how tall it needed to be to fit in a picture.

A shovel-ready oatcake

Jeff added: "The kiln was designed to remind people of Stoke's history and we will use it to look to the past to serve food, such as oatcakes on shovels. It's just how Stokers (people from Stoke who stoked the fire for the pot banks) would have eaten."

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